Download Outline of Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”

Outline of Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”
I.
Two basic assumptions stated and defended.
A. Assumptions stated.
1. Suffering and death from lack of food, clothing, and shelter are bad.
2. If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening without thereby
sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, we ought to do so. (That is,
we have a moral obligation to do so.) This principle is a crucial claim in the essay,
and we will label it “CMI” to emphasize “comparable moral importance.”
B. Assumptions defended.
1. Proximity or distance does not affect our obligation.
2. My being one of millions who could help does not affect my individual obligation.
II. It logically follows from the above two premises (assumptions) that if it is in our power to
prevent suffering and death from lack of food, clothing, and shelter without thereby
sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, we ought to do so. [Note that this is
an exact logical conclusion from the two premises.] This will involve our reformulating the
distinction between duty and charity. We have a duty to sacrifice in order to help starving
people, and we are blameworthy if we fail to do so. (It is not simply a matter of "charity.")
III. Responses to both philosophical and practical objections.
A. Objection: This is too drastic a revision of our moral scheme (our usual way of thinking
about morality).
Singer: How people do in fact judge is not the issue; the issue is how they should judge
these matters.
B. Objection: The basis of moral duty is the necessities of a particular society.
Singer: The moral point of view requires us to look beyond the interests of our own
society. [The moral point of view must be impartial, counting all persons equally, not
favoring those in our own society.]
C. Objection: If the demands of morality are set too high, people will ignore morality.
Singer: People's actions and beliefs are influenced by what is expected of them; setting a
higher standard will influence people to aspire to a higher morality.
D. Objection: Singer's view would require us to work fulltime to prevent suffering.
Singer: This does not follow necessarily from my principles, but given the current
suffering in the world, we are so obligated.
E. Objection (practical): Famine relief is a governmental responsibility, not an individual
one.
Singer: This objection would be relevant only if it could be shown that individual giving
would lessen governmental aid; actually, it would likely increase it.
F. Objection (practical): Population control, not money, is the answer.
Singer: If so, we are obligated to sacrifice our time and money to work for population
control.
Question: how much does Singer require us to give? Distinguish between Singer's main thesis,
(give until sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, "CMI") and his weaker or “more
moderate” thesis (sacrifice until giving up something of moral significance.).''
Singer’s position here is an excellent example of the standard view in philosophical ethics:
rational and impartial. In this course we will examine several different kinds of objections to
Singer: for example, Arthur argues against Singer’s utilitarian position and Cottingham (later essay)
argues against the assumption (in the standard view) that ethics must be impartial.
Arthur's Case Against Singer
The “Greater Moral Evil Rule” or “CMI”
Arthur calls Singer's crucial premise—the one we have called “CMI”—the greater moral
evil rule. The two names for this premise both emphasize the same point: my own suffering is
morally no more important than the suffering of others. The name “CMI” emphasizes that I am
morally required to sacrifice to prevent something bad for someone else unless the sacrifice
would be comparable to the bad I am preventing. (That's a lot of sacrifice!) Arthur calls this the
“greater moral evil rule” to stress that Singer's premise means that we are entitled to keep what
we earn only if there is no way to prevent a greater evil by giving our earnings away. (Again, a
lot of sacrifice.)
Think carefully about Arthur's view of the “greater moral evil rule.” Although Arthur clearly
opposes Singer's conclusions about famine relief, he does not deny that “the greater moral evil”
rule is important. In fact, he identifies its spirit with Thomas Jefferson's principle of equality and
the idea that “like amounts of suffering or happiness are of equal importance, no matter who
experiences them.” In other words, Arthur thinks this principle is basic to any standard, impartial
view of ethics, including his own. Where he differs from Singer is that he believes that “CMI” IS
ONLY ONE PART OF MORALITY, NOT THE WHOLE OF IT. So we now need to ask: what
does Arthur think Singer's view leaves out?
Entitlements: Rights and Desert
Arthur criticizes Singer for ignoring an aspect of morality that he regards as important in
addition to the greater moral evil rule; specifically, the idea of entitlements.
Unlike the greater moral evil rule (CMI) which focuses on future consequences, entitlements
are non-consequentialist and base moral obligations on the past. Arthur refers to two kinds of
entitlements: rights and desert. For example, you have a right to your body parts because they are
yours, even if better consequences would come about from your giving them away. A person
who works hard may deserve more food than a neighbor who does not work, even if the neighbor
will suffer more without the food. Whereas Singer's CMI only considers consequences, Arthur
claims we must also consider rights and desert.
One of Arthur's most powerful arguments is his attempt to reduce Singer's position to
absurdity. Arthur argues that Singer's crucial “CMI” premise logically implies that people have a
moral obligation to do things like give up parts of their bodies to other people who need them
more. If that conclusion is truly “absurd,” then there must be something wrong with Singer's CMI
premise. (See class discussion of this form of argument.)
Note carefully that even Arthur claims that sometimes the greater moral evil rule (CMI) will
outweigh rights and desert, but where he differs from Singer is in claiming that sometimes rights
and desert will outweigh CMI. This means that sometimes we are not morally obligated to give
something away even though our gift would prevent a greater moral evil.
This Is “Our Commonly Shared Morality,” But Is It the Right One?
Arthur keeps saying that not only consequences (CMI) but also entitlements are part of “our
commonly shared morality.” If all Arthur is saying is that entitlements are part of our
culture's current customary morality, that would just be a descriptive claim and not an argument
against Singer. It would just be using custom as a basis for morality, and we know that is not
acceptable philosophically. Arthur recognizes this when he says: “But unless we are moral
relativists, the mere fact that entitlements are an important part of our moral code does not in
itself justify such a role. Singer. . .can perhaps be seen as a moral reformer. . .” And of course
that is how Singer does regard himself. So what Arthur needs to do is to show that the idea of
entitlements is a well-grounded, justified ethical concept, not merely one we currently tend to
accept. He tries to do this in the next few paragraphs. How well he does that could be a subject of
debate; Singer would not accept Arthur's idea that a correct moral code must be one that is able
to gain support from almost everyone. That might be true of a legal code, but for Singer, as a
moral reformer, the correctness of a moral code would not depend on the kinds of things Arthur
cites. Who do you think is right about this?
A Closer Look At Arthur's Position on Rights
Arthur's argument against Singer is based on Arthur's claim that rights must be considered,
not just consequences. But what rights would limit our obligation to give to starving people?
Arthur claims that wealthy people not only have a right to their body parts (above) but also a
right to their fairly acquired property. Notice, however, that even Arthur does not claim that
property rights are absolute, and he says that the obligation to help suffering
people sometimes outweighs the right to property.
But even someone who agreed with Arthur about the existence of rights might challenge
Arthur by claiming that the right of starving people to get help from the wealthy outweighs the
right of the wealthy to keep their property. Arthur would argue against this on the grounds that
there is an important difference between negative rights and positive rights. This is an important
distinction in political philosophy.
Any right implies some kind of obligation; namely, an obligation to respect the right. A
negative right implies a negative obligation, an obligation not to do something. For example, the
negative right not to be killed implies an obligation not to kill. A positive right, in contrast,
implies that someone has a moral obligation to do something. Much controversy exists about
whether there are any positive rights. An example of a claim to a positive right would be a right
of hungry people to food. We cannot respect this right simply by not stealing from them: we have
to act to provide the food. Arthur argues that positive rights only come about when there has
been some kind of promise or contract. This is a crucial claim, one with which some
philosophers would disagree. Could it, for example, be reasonably claimed that a starving person
has a right to help from the wealthy simply by being a fellow human being on this planet? This
seems to be Aquinas’s claim (when Singer quotes Aquinas). We will examine this debate about
rights in class discussion.